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calendars

How to set up Appointment Slots in Google Calendar

Many of us have blocks of time we make available to others people, such as professionals, academics, coaches, tennis buddies--the list is endless. Google Calendar just added a new feature that makes setting aside and scheduling appointment times incredibly easy. Here's how to get started:

Log on to your Google account and open up your calendar. Click and drag an open space in your calendar and select "Appointment slots" from the bubble (Note: this will not work in the Month view.) Give the block a title and select which calendar it lives in, then select the type (… Read more

Calendar spreadsheet

Perpetual Calendar from Vertex42 is an Excel spreadsheet that creates calendars for any year from 1900 to 9999, beginning with any month you like, holidays included. It's extremely easy to use: Simply enter the year, tweak any fields, and click Save or Print. It behaves like any Excel template.

Perpetual Calendar downloads as a compressed file but opens normally in Excel when extracted. The spreadsheet is clearly configured, with a large year display above a 12-month calendar. To the right is a list titled Events or Holidays; it included not only traditional holidays but also tax day and equinoxes … Read more

How to display Android events in your home time zone

Android Gingerbread phones can now display your home time zone for calendar events, even when traveling to another time zone. Here's how:

Step 1: Go into your Android calendar and hit the Menu Key, then tap Settings.

Step 2: Tap the box next to the "Use home time zone" setting to check mark it. Make sure that the "Home time zone" setting, just below, is set correctly to your home time zone.

That's it. Now when you're traveling, you can still see all of your events in your home time zone.

First Take: Apple's iCloud service

The introduction of the iCloud at today's WWDC keynote symbolizes Apple's shift to cloud-based backups, syncing, and moving files seamlessly among all your devices, whether you have an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, or PC. Just like Google's offerings (Doc and Calendar syncing, and Picasa, as examples), iCloud lets you sync media, apps, music, documents, calendars, and more automatically. It's important to note that Android has had the download and sync features since February of this year.

As usual at Apple's keynote events, Steve Jobs was not the only person on the stage demonstrating the latest and greatest from Apple. Phil Schiller, senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, came up to talk about multitouch gestures on the Mac, for example. Craig Federighi, senior vice president of Apple software, then came up to demo some of the new features of full-screen apps. But when it was time to talk about iCloud, it was Steve Jobs who did the talking. In other words, however you feel about iCloud, it seemed to be the "main event" that Apple seemed to be most excited about.… Read more

Back to basics

Calendar software is ubiquitous, with options for everyone no matter how simple or complex your needs. As the name suggests, Classic Calendar falls more into the simple category, with the features you would expect from a traditional calendar and not much else.

The program's interface is plain and easy to navigate, consisting of a basic-looking calendar and an Options menu at the top. The calendar's color scheme is highly customizable; users can select the colors for the main background, date boxes, empty boxes, calendar text, and highlighted days. Users can also select the font they want to use … Read more

Adding a birthday calendar to Google Calendar

Remembering birthdays or other personal holidays can be difficult without use of a calendar or date book. If you're already using Gmail and Google Calendar these dates can kept on hand at all times. To take the pressure off yourself to remember important dates, just follow these steps:

1. Log into Gmail and choose Contacts from the menu in the upper left corner. It will look something like this:

2. Add birthdays to your individual contacts that the calendar will be able to use. Save the contact info and then open Google Calendar.

3. Save the contact and then … Read more

Track your hours

TimeTable is a low-cost tool that works with iCal to help you track your hours, so you know exactly how much time you've spent on particular tasks--which can be especially handy for consultants and anyone else who tracks their time for billing purposes.

TimeTable has a simple, multipane interface that plugs right into your iCal data: You see your iCal calendars on the left, which you can select or deselect, and a list of events with date, duration, and title on the right (and you can add a dozen different columns in all, including notes and start and end … Read more

Five lazy ways to find great live music

It always seems like the best concerts are the ones you hear about too late. But who has time to scour the show listings in the local paper or habitually check a band's Web site for tour dates?

There's a better way. In fact, there are so many sites out there promising personalized concert recommendations, I figured a roundup was in order. So here you are, five sites that will put you in tune with the best live music in your area, using data from your favorite music sites and services:

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How to enable Google Sync for a Google Apps account

If you or your employer use Google Apps as your e-mail provider, and you are experiencing issues setting up Google Sync on your mobile device, make sure that the account admin has Google Sync enabled. This short guide will walk you through enabling Google Sync (ActiveSync), which will allow members of the Google Apps account to access their e-mail, contacts, and even calendar as if they were on an Exchange server. … Read more

RIM buys calendar specialist Tungle

BlackBerry maker Research In Motion has bought Tungle, a start-up with a scheduling app that synchronizes across various calendar systems.

The deal was revealed yesterday in a Tungle blog post, in which company chief Marc Gingras said his team was "excited" about the takeover. The financial terms of the deal between the two Canadian companies have not been revealed.

"This is exciting for you too as we expect the Tungle service to only get better," Gingras wrote. "Our plan today is what it has always been--for Tungle to become integrated with your daily activities and … Read more